+++
title = "Why you don't want a Purism Librem 5"
date = 2021-06-27
+++


Why you don\'t want a Purism Librem 5 {#why-you-dont-want-a-purism-librem-5-1}
=====================================

I had a special place in my heart for Purism. And I\'ve blogged about
liking them before. Money scarcity finally became less of an issue about
two and a half years ago when I finally put down the money for the
Librem 5 back in the winter of 2019.

After what had seemed like forever, Purism finally decided to start
taking orders, not just crowdfunding for backers. So about a month
before the device should have shipped, Pursim delayed, and then delayed,
and then delayed the release.

Eventually they changed their refund policy. It originally looked like
this:

> 1.  If, for any reason, you want to cancel your order before it was
>     shipped, we will issue a full refund.
> 2.  If there is a defective hardware component, we'll send you a
>     replacement part or a new product unit free of charge (see
>     Warranty \#2 and \#3).
> 3.  If you want to return a product that doesn't have any hardware
>     issues, we'll charge a 10% restocking fee. We accept these returns
>     within 30 days of delivery.

Then they started making a distinction between orders and pre-orders.
I\'ll omit most of it. Reading back through the page archives shows
several versions.

> 1.  If, for any reason, you want to cancel your order before it was
>     shipped, we will issue a full refund.
> 2.  If you want to cancel an order for products that are in the
>     process of crowdfunding or pre-order, we will issue a full refund
>     once the crowdfunding/pre-order of the product is completed and
>     all pre-orders are shipped.

So about a year ago I started to try to reach out to their support folks
asking for a refund. It took several months and then finally they
referred me to the change in the policy. They said since I was a
\"backer\" I had to wait. I reached out to the Better Business Bureau
aka BBB (apparently on available from the US) and they took about a
month or two to tell me the business practices were awful but they only
rate and seek to resolve issues. But since Purism had ignored all their
inquiries, the BBB said they could do nothing to help me. They did
suggest a lawsuit, but who has time for that when there\'s a pandemic,
employment is shifty, healthcare is expensive, my bioregion was
recovering from fire damage from a few months before, or my bioregion
was currently going through power outages due to an ice storm. Btw, see
my other posts about how all of these have contributed to lack of sleep.

So here I thought I would put down my thoughts and experience on this.
If I had a Librem 5 in my hands today I would be happy to have it. No
doubt about it. But as it is, I cannot recommend it at all. There are
some YouTubers who have reviewed it, but I absolutely must assume
they\'ve been prioritized for their adverts. And in fact I must tell
folks to not buy it because of the way I have been treated. If someone
like me who lives a relatively privileged life suffers a little from
700US\$ in 2019, someone else in a lesser disposition in life is going
to hurt hard and even worse in 2021.

Please do not recommend the Purism Librem 5.

Thanks go The Wayback Machine at archive.org.

UPDATE 2022-06-08 Lead times posted
-----------------------------------

It looks like Purism has started posting that the non-US made Librem 5
will taking 52 weeks of lead time. I\'ve archived the page. So at this
point, though for accountability I have no faith in it, I should have to
wait a year. Going back to July 2021 I see they expected \"parity\" as
early as last October into this year.

The reason why I even looked on their website was because someone I know
who also ordered one (and is still waiting) sent me a link to a post on
reddit. I\'m over it, but at this point I still need to warn potential
new customers.

What can I buy instead?
=======================

If you really want to support a libre project, particularly a mobile
phone, I suggest the PINEPHONE from pine64.com. At least they seem to be
shipping to more than just YouTubers advertising their products.

Links
=====

-   [Librem 5 - Purism Shop - Archived
    2019-01-24](https://web.archive.org/web/20190124034755/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)
-   [Policies - Purism - Archived
    2019-01-24](https://web.archive.org/web/20190124033110/https://puri.sm/policies/)
-   [Policies - Purism - Archived
    2021-01-17](https://web.archive.org/web/20210117180043/https://puri.sm/policies/)
-   [Reddit - Purism says phones aren\'t coming until \'next year\' -
    Archived
    2022-06-08](https://web.archive.org/web/20220608203150/https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/uqyui0/purism_says_phones_arent_coming_until_next_year/)
-   [Librem 5 gets availability lead time of 52 weeks - Archived
    2022-06-08](https://web.archive.org/web/20220608195751/https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/)
-   [Librem 5 note added about shipping parity - Archived 2021-07-02 -
    Retrieved
    2022-06-08](https://web.archive.org/web/20210702113338/https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/)
